Empty Chairs
by Enchiladas
Summary: The Doctor's companions are all gone, and now it is just him alone with his thoughts. Grief overwhelms and angst begins. How can such a horrible person live with himself? Les Miserables songfic.


**A/N: So this is my first sign of life on the sight in a while. I probably would have continued my hiatus, but this idea stuck to me. I wrote this a few months ago and it has been my baby ever since. I hope everyone enjoys my kinda-sorta songfic as much as I did writing it. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or Les Miserables. All credits go to John Donne with the poem Death be not Proud**

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_There's a grief that can't be spoken._ The Doctor stared blankly at the TARDIS console. _There's a pain goes on and on._ His hands gripped the cold metal controls, gritting his teeth. He glared at the vacant pilot's chair. _Empty chairs at empty tables._ The Doctor slammed his fist on a button, causing the machine to groan. That was all it was to the Doctor now. Just a machine. _Now my friends are dead and gone._

The old man made his way around the control room as the unmistakable sense of despair enveloped him. _Here they talked of revolution._ The Doctor let out moan of sorrow. _Here it was they lit the flame._ Why? Why him? _Here they sang about 'tomorrow'_ Why does he, the fixer of all problems, become stuck with this curse? _And tomorrow never came._ Why? After all he does, why? Why, why, WHY?

_From the table in the corner,_ The Doctor reminisced of the times he and Amy would sit in that chair and talk of nothing in particular. How he would press buttons on the console and try (unsuccessfully) to impress River. How he danced with Rose on that platform. _They could see a world reborn._ Humans. Always seeing hope where there is none. They used to help the Doctor. _And they rose with voices ringing_ They helped him have hope. Hope. He thinks the word bitterly. His companions were so naive. There is no such thing as hope! The concept is just a clever lie! Yet part of the Time Lord doesn't believe that… The human half.

"Raggedy man!"

"Doctor, I love you."

"...It's smaller on the outside."

"I'm in my wedding dress!"

"I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best. But you know what? I am good."

"Doctor who?" _I can hear them now!_ The last remark made the Doctor's pain ten times worse. Never again did he want to be asked that damned question. It always led to heartbreak. Thou art slave to Fate, and Fate is a cruel master. _The very words that they had sung,_ Hope. The very entity that brought them to him, took them away. _Became their last communion._ It ripped Them from his hands like taking candy from a baby. Here it was they died. The romping grounds of the Doctor. He is an animal in the eyes of civilization. Maybe he really is. A savage. A brute. Of course they knew where he would go. So predictable. And then they killed his pack. They fought. _On the lonely barricade at dawn._ They fought for him.

Hell, why should he care? They are merely apes! Not brilliant, stupid! Unimportant! Obsolete! The Universe didn't need them, all they have to offer is an overwhelming bloodlust. Humans. Daleks are better than them. At least they don't have a conscience to stop them from doing terrible things.

The Doctor's heart's throbbed. He really was evil. How could he ever think that? He was a selfish old man who should have died long ago. _Oh my friends, my friends forgive me._ Why did he not die in place of them? He has lived too long. There was sad man in a box who just wanted it to be over. All over.

Life seemed to mock him as the Doctor's loved ones manifested in the TARDIS. They seemed so real. Doing what they always have done, acting the ways the Doctor missed the most. _That I live and you are gone._ Truly, all the old man wated was for him to die in their place. They were all so young, with bright futures ahead of them. Any one of them would have been so much better than him. At least if they lived he could die in peace. Hell, he's over a thousand years old and on his last regeneration. What's a few years lost? Years of torture. He could barely take it now. _There's a grief that can't be spoken._ He was no better than a serial killer. In fact, he was a serial killer. And he committed genocide to boot! How does the universe continue with so much evil? The mad man wished that Evil didn't exist. _There's a pain goes on and on._ Then he could travel with the ones he loved without losing them.

If the Doctor didn't see them everywhere, maybe he could move on. Maybe he could continue on in life without a cringing reminder every time he looked at something simple. _Phantom faces at the window._ Hearing the disembodied laughs along the corridors of the TARDIS. _Phantom shadows on the floor._ Forgetting they were gone. _Empty chairs at empty tables._ And that they will never come back. _Where my friends will meet no more._

Why would anyone want to save he, the Doctor. He was a crotchety geezer with nothing left. His so called companions were so noble as to give up their lives for his own. _Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me,_ They saw him as a perfect being, but he is not. God knows what got that pounded into their head. The Doctor wished they realized that he needs them and not the other way around. _What your sacrifice was for._ Maybe it was meant to be. Karma's punch in the face. But maybe they are better off. The Doctor seemed to spread his bad luck to everyone he neared. More horrible things could have happened to them._ I suppose,_ the Doctor thought, _death isn't that bad._ The thought didn't stop the bone-chilling despair. He should join them. End the pain and be with the ones he loves.

_Empty chairs at empty tables._ He's an old man anyway. What has he to lose?

_Where my friends will sing no mor-_

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**A/N: Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed! As always, flames=s'mores, CC wanted, and please review!**


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